Riptide
by heartsways
Summary: After the events of Straight on Til Morning, Emma has time to consider what happened between her and Regina. She comes to a conclusion and wants to share her ideas with Regina as they sail towards Neverland.


She waits. She watches. Because before all of this – before the madness of fairytales being real, before she became a Savior and a mother and a daughter in one fell swoop, before the magic that throbs power through her body and makes her skin feel like it's on fire - Emma Swan was a hunter. And maybe she hunted miscreants who hid in the seamy underbelly of human life, but she was still a hunter. There were no bows and arrows or swords for her then. Nothing but her wits and her determination to ensnare her prey, lying in wait and perfecting patience that has long since deserted her.

On a voyage that is longer than any of them anticipated, Emma finds that patience – or perhaps determination – returns to her, as startlingly present as her long lost son who found her against all the odds and brought her into this world. Just like she brought him into the other one, kicking and screaming and crying pitifully for the hurt he was yet to endure.

So she waits. She watches. And she sees more than she expected. She sees how her mother and father look at Regina with curious interest. How Rumple offers Regina sly smiles of bitter triumph. How Hook is distant and barely talks anymore, his gaze fixed to the horizon and his jaw set in a resolute refusal to let anyone else steer the ship.

Most of all, Emma sees Regina. There's something fragile about her now, as though all that happened in the mines has changed her. Changed _both_ of them. Because there's no denying that Emma, albeit ignorant in the ways of magic, can feel a subtle shift in how they move around one another without ever touching, a precarious dance in which both wait for the other to take the lead. She tries to get Regina alone during the day, but there are jobs to do and plans to make and the erstwhile Mayor, former Evil Queen is all business and simply doesn't have time to answer any of Emma's questions, should the Savior dare to ask them.

Emma doesn't. Asking would betray her concern. And concern would lead to the unfolding of secrets that she's not sure she has the courage to confess even to herself. Not _yet_.

But waiting and watching only serves a limited purpose. The time for action always follows sooner or later. So on the third night that Emma pretends to be asleep while Regina slips out of the cramped cabin, she rises quietly from her bed and shrugs on her heavy coat.

It's cold on deck; night brings with it a chill that makes Emma shiver as she squints through the darkness and tries to figure out where Regina has gone. It's a few moments before she sees her, a lone figure standing at the prow of the ship. Regina appears as little more than a shadow. Somehow that seems appropriate, Emma thinks as she makes her way across the deck, careful not to slip on the wet spray from errant waves, or trip over the coiled rigging that Hook has demanded they learn to use.

Her approach is careless, noisy even over the sound of the waves that the bow of the ship slices through; a ceaseless rush that buffets The Jolly Roger from side to side. She's not surprised when Regina turns, a frown burrowing between her brows.

Emma draws alongside the other woman and reaches out, grasping the railing to steady herself until she can acclimatize to the rocking, bending her knees a little as the ship lists back and forth.

Regina looks her up and down in that way she has, but it seems half-hearted now. There's little aggression in her face anymore; she lacks the will for it now. Finally, Regina sighs and purses her lips. "I knew you weren't asleep," is all she says.

"Yeah?" Emma is a little chagrined, a little offended.

"You snore, Miss Swan," Regina tells her with not a little wicked pleasure. "Something you appear to have inherited from your father."

Emma rolls her eyes but grins anyway; over the last few nights they've all been on board, she's started to wonder how her mother stands it. But she's come to learn that not every fairytale character she read about as a kid is without flaws of one kind or another, and if all Prince Charming has to mar his spotless fictional reputation is a little snoring, then she'll take it. Besides, it pales into insignificance in light of the very real parents she's discovered who are merely people, not heroes.

"What are you doing out here?" Emma asks, shivering a little and pulling her coat more closely around her body with one hand.

"I was thinking," Regina answers pointedly. "Something I prefer to do alone."

"Good luck with that," Emma mutters.

"It doesn't require luck," Regina snaps. "It only requires manners enough to appreciate it."

She looks like she might say more, but clamps her mouth tight shut and turns away, looking out over the ocean. The black leather gloves she's wearing stretch as she curls her fingers tightly over the railing and she shakes her head, hair blowing back from her face in the wind coming up over the prow of the ship.

Whatever Emma wants to say sticks in her throat. Maybe she's not ready yet. Or maybe she's just afraid of verbalizing the things that have washed around inside her head, sometimes bobbing to the surface of the roiling sea of confusion that she's felt ever since they were down in the mines below Storybrooke.

Her mouth is opening and she's moving forwards when Regina turns again. This time there's a stricken expression on her face that's quite at odds with the calm she likes to display to the others during the daytime.

"I should have died!" she says, her voice snatched away immediately by the sea air. But Emma winces at it anyway, shrinking from the abject pain that Regina still feels; the hurt that Emma's seen and believed. "You should have let me!"

"No," Emma gasps, both appalled and affronted by the memory that she was, in fact, going to let Regina do just that. "I wasn't – I couldn't – "

"Because of Henry, I know," Regina nods.

"Right." _Wrong_. It's not just because of him and now Emma understands _that_ more than she understands anything else that's happened lately.

"Because of Henry," she repeats dully. It might be a somewhat guilty excuse but it's as good as any other she can come up with right now. Certainly better than the reasons that were written across Regina's face as she trembled under the power being sapped from her, along with her life.

Emma blinks and shakes her head a little, trying to dispel the emotions memory elicits. She tries not to brood over things, but this damn boat is too small to run away from her feelings; her parents are too attentive to let her truly think it through. So she's caught between wanting to explore the confusing kaleidoscope of those moments in the mines and wanting to, quite simply, get as far away from them as possible.

There _is_ no in between. There never really was with Regina.

"Are we gonna talk about it?"

Regina lifts an eyebrow, but it's clear from the way her lips tremble that she knows what Emma means. She's known ever since The Savior decided to save _her_.

"What's there to talk about?" Regina lifts her chin, eyes glittering in the moonlight that streaks between clouds tethered to the dark night sky. "We're going to find Henry and – "

"That's not what I mean." It comes out in a rush and Emma takes an awkwardly unbalanced step closer to Regina. She can tell that the other woman knows what she's talking about. It's what they absolutely, positively _haven't_ talked about since it happened.

"When we did magic together, it was…"

"Powerful."

It's a word Regina's used so many times that it came to represent all that she truly desired. But as it slides over her lips now, she knows that it's taken on an entirely different meaning. From the way that Emma flinches slightly and tugs at her coat again, it's clear that The Savior truly understands how it feels now. Power. Strength. And all that comes with it.

"You felt it too, then?" Emma cocks her head onto one side and squints at Regina.

"Of course," Regina says shortly. But she's spent days pondering the true nature of what it was she felt. Of the significance it had. _Has_. Might yet have.

Emma remembers the way Regina looked at her as their powers combined; as magic bled from light to dark and back again, tempering one another, fortifying one another. She remembers how Regina smiled at her, wonder and kindness in her eyes. But most of all, Emma remembers how they were stronger together than either of them ever was on their own.

The sensation tingles through her, a diluted, hazy ripple of how had felt in the mines, but it's there, nonetheless. Even now, as Regina turns away from her and looks across the miles of ocean they have yet to cross. Just being near her with quiet blanketing around them is…

Emma can't finish that thought. Because to finish it is to accept it. And she's not sure that she has yet.

"Should I…should I stay?" She screws up her face and shrugs because she knows she should leave Regina well enough alone. But there's small comfort in being by her side like this and _that_, Emma thinks, is better than nothing at all.

Regina glances at her now, a solemn look in her eyes that reminds Emma so much of Henry that her stomach lurches with sudden grief for his absence. She swallows and tries to breathe, but it's like all the oxygen has been sucked from the air around them and she flounders for a moment until Regina gives her a tiny smile that somehow makes things a little better, a little more tolerable.

"Well, they do say that misery loves company," Regina murmurs, her voice barely audible over the waves breaking on the bow and the wind that picks up, whistling around them.

It's hardly the entreaty Emma was looking for. But it's not a dismissal, either. So she turns her face to the ocean breeze and stands by Regina in silence.

For another three nights, when Charming, Snow and Rumple have fallen into slumber and Hook has taken his place at the wheel, Emma joins Regina and they stand at the bow of the ship staring out over the sea not yet plundered by The Jolly Roger.

They don't talk. Emma is silent because of the lies she might tell; Regina, because she has no deception left to offer. It's a strange, companionable feeling that surrounds them, but it's _theirs_. Just like the magic they created together. Unexpected, unusual, unique. A thing that shouldn't have been possible and yet _was_.

_That's the thing about magic_, Emma thinks as she steals a glance at Regina. _It comes with a price_. She believes that now more than ever. At first she'd thought it was Henry – that losing him was the cost of what she and Regina had done.

Now she knows better. Because they'll find Henry; they'll take him home – wherever that is – and neither she nor Regina will rest until that happens. No; the true cost of magic sits in her chest, emanating a bright shock of pain and sensation from time to time that catches her unawares. She didn't ask for it, much like the magic itself. But she can't help wondering if everything has been leading to this; if the sort of Fate and Destiny that Neal talked about is real, circling her around the one thing she's tried so hard to rail against.

"So," Emma says, unable to stay quiet any longer, "about the magic."

There's something passing over Regina's features that looks like relief. Emma smiles crookedly in what she hopes is an encouraging manner. A good hunter always knows when its prey is ready to surrender, only Regina was ready _days_ ago. Maybe even longer. The only thing holding Emma back has been herself.

"You said that the trigger…device…diamond thingy couldn't be stopped."

"I did." Regina wraps her arms around her torso and leans against the railing of the ship.

"But **we** stopped it."

"Yes."

"An unstoppable thing."

"As much as I hate to admit it, Miss Swan, I'm as clueless as you usually are." Regina's eyes are dark in the gloom around them, but Emma can't help thinking that she hears a slightly teasing tone to the other woman's voice. It might not be much, but it's a sign of progress; the fact that Regina's saying anything at all is a sign of _something_, surely?

"You're not though, are you?" Now Emma leans forwards, insinuating herself into Regina's eyeline and frowning. "Everyone told me that I was made of true love and that it was the most powerful magic of all. Your mom…she tried to rip my heart out and she couldn't. When I did that protection spell in Gold's shop, I felt it then. There's something inside me that's…well, it's…"

"Bigger than anything you've ever felt before?" Regina finishes, and Emma nods weakly, almost shamefully. Because she's having a conversation with the Evil Queen aboard The Jolly Roger as they're on their way to Neverland. If she were to tell anyone about this, they'd lock her up for sure. Hell, she's been close to incarcerating herself again because at times, she feels like she's going insane.

"It wasn't supposed to work," Regina adds. "But when you joined your magic with mine, it just…**did**." She shrugs a little, helpless to try and explain it even though at the back of her mind, there's a theory that's been forming that both excites and alarms her.

"I felt connected to you," Emma blurts, and bites at her lower lip as Regina's eyes rest on her again, watchful and wary.

Regina blinks once, contemplative. "And I you," she says quietly.

They descend into silence once more until Regina, shoving her hands deep into the pockets of her coat, casts one last look at Emma and makes her way across the deck towards the steps leading back into the cabins below.

The next night is, Hook tells them, their last on board ship. By the time daylight comes, they'll have reached the shores of Neverland. Regina avoids Snow's gaze until they retire to the cabins below and then she makes her way to her vantage point on the bow of the ship for a final time.

Emma's already waiting for her and Regina halts a few feet away, bending with the swaying motion of the ship beneath her feet. She knows that look on Emma's face. Inside her chest, her heart sinks because she'd been hoping to avoid the inevitable questions about what they did. But as the blonde turns and looks at her, Regina knows there will only be answers tonight.

"I've been thinking about what you said," Emma barely waits until Regina is by her side and her words come out in a rush of eagerness. "About how people see you."

"Have you." It's not so much a question as a statement, flat and disinterested.

"Before we…before we did magic, you thought you were going to die. And – and Henry went to you. He wanted his last moments to be by your side, Regina."

Emma can see the flicker of recognition on Regina's features, how they pull into taut lines as she recalls the way her son pressed himself against her, holding on as tightly as he did when he was a baby.

"He let go for so long," Regina murmurs. She shifts, placing her hands on the guide rail and shakes her head, hair ruffling in the night breeze. "I thought he'd never come back to me."

"That's just it, though," Emma persists, peering into Regina's face. She's closer to the other woman than she's been in days and there's no mistaking the crackle of magic in the air that whirls between them for a fleeting moment. "You were full of love for him. Full of **love**, Regina."

There's confusion now, furrowing Regina's brow and she blinks at Emma, a little bewildered by the impassioned gaze and the set of The Savior's chin. She looks, for a moment, so much like her mother that Regina resists the urge to recoil from her because the Charmings were never meant to be a part of this. _Emma_ was never meant to be a part of this.

And yet, here they are.

"I figured it out," Emma says with a tiny grin of victory. "The magic we created together – the way we deactivated that diamond…it was because of good. Yours and mine."

"That's not possible," Regina whispers. Deep down, she knows that she'd started to believe that, too. Good was always beyond her reach, and she'd grasped at it with hungry fingers, never quite holding it long enough to allow the truth of it to touch her. Not after Daniel. Not after her mother.

"It is," Emma draws even closer, and one hand reaches out to rest on Regina's arm. "It **has** to be, because that's what I felt. All the good inside you."

"No, that was **you**," Regina shakes her head as the ship rises and dips over waves that build in intensity beneath it. "**You're** the product of true love, Emma. That's what I felt – what we **both** felt."

Emma's fingers tighten on Regina's arm. "You told me you wanted to die as Regina," she urged. "And I know who she is now. I know who **you** are."

Regina quivers under her touch, and it has nothing to do with the gusts of wind flying around them, or the coldness coming from the spray of shattered waves. It's terrifying and incredible all at once, like the magic they shared with each other.

"So how about trying to **live**," Emma breathes, "as Regina instead?"

There is horror in Regina's eyes, glittering hard as diamonds as they fill with tears and Emma knows that this is right, this is _good_. This is what she felt and will always feel when she's near the other woman. She fights the desire to run from whatever this is and instead vows to stay. Not because she wants to, but because she can tell that Regina needs it. Now more than ever.

The ship groans and lifts beneath their feet, crashing down into the ocean so quickly that it makes them lose their footing. Stumbling awkwardly, Emma plunges forwards and finds herself in Regina's arms. It's less of an embrace and more as though they're holding onto one another for dear life and Emma can't help the tiny, nervous laugh that bubbles in her throat because that's probably the way it's going to be from now on.

The smile on her lips freezes as she lifts her head and finds herself looking into a pair of dark eyes that brim with the same sort of affection – it's really the only word for it – that Emma saw and felt in the mines. She can feel Regina's breath on her cheek: warm and soft and inviting. And Regina's mouth, capable of throwing maddeningly harsh words at her is now silent, open, inviting.

"Regina," Emma hears herself say. Because that's who she sees. If their magic created a veil of uncertainty and hope between them, then that's what lifts now, allowing clarity and a naked vulnerability to shine so brightly that Emma thinks they could turn night to day if that was their wish. And for all the dark, deep fissures in their lives that have threatened to pull them both into a bottomless pit of blackness, Emma knows that there is always light to guide them to what's true, in the end.

She's moving now, and so is Regina. The motion of the ship means that when they kiss, it lacks finesse and the sort of seduction that should really typify the flirtation they've both indulged in over time. But it doesn't seem to matter as lips move over lips and hands scrabble for purchase at one another's bodies. A groan comes from Emma's throat and all she can understand right now is the greedy way that her mouth needs to be on Regina's, starved for so long from anything remotely resembling this sort of passion.

The ship lists again and they are thrown apart, blindly flinging out their arms to steady themselves by the railing. By the time Emma looks up, Regina has a hand over her mouth, eyes wide and gleaming in the darkness.

"I'm sorry, I – " Emma begins but Regina shakes her head violently and backs away before turning on her heel and running away across the deck.

They've both picked over an unappealing breakfast under Snow's curious eyes before Hook announces that they can go ashore. Rumple narrows his gaze and looks between them, questions forming on his lips that both Emma and Regina choose to ignore. As they make their way down the rickety plank leading to a desolate beach, Emma catches up with Regina and grabs her arm, jumping onto sand that is solid beneath her feet. She wobbles a little; after only days at sea, she's almost forgotten how the ground feels.

She's almost forgotten how _everything_ feels, other than the weariness of feeling itself.

"We need to talk," Emma says urgently in a low voice.

"No, we don't," Regina tells her bluntly, snatching her arm from Emma's grasp. "I will **not** indulge you in your games, Miss Swan. Whatever you think you were doing is unacceptable and inappropriate."

"Except it's not. You felt it too."

"What I **felt**," Regina emphasizes in a clipped tone, "is of no consequence. We're here to find Henry. To take him home. You and I are…allies, at best."

"We're more than that." Emma shakes her head and notices how Regina won't look at her. "There's something between us…something special and yeah, maybe I don't know what the hell it is but I know that I want to find out."

She leans in towards the other woman and screws up her face hopefully. "Don't you?"

Emma can feel, rather than see, the softening of Regina's features; the surrender that has always been on the fringes of who she is and blunted her sharp-edged wants with a desperate hurt that reminds Regina of all that she's lost and all she might gain. So when she finally turns to look at Emma, there's nothing but pity and fear in her gaze.

"Emma," Regina forces out, swallowing over the final syllable and taking a second to squeeze her eyes shut in an effort to gain a little strength. "Emma, I – "

There's a shout further down the beach, drawing their attention to four figures who are running towards them. Hook and Charming are at the ready, almost crouched into a battle stance before the figures come into view. Emma recognizes them, breath catching in her throat as one of them calls her name and sprints across the sand, barreling into her and sweeping her up in a bearlike hug.

"I knew you'd come!" Neal cries out, burying his face into Emma's neck and spinning her around. "I knew you'd be here. We tried so hard…**so** hard to come here and…god, Emma, I'm so happy to see you. I missed you. I'm never letting you go again."

Over his shoulder, Emma's eyes meet Regina's again and she winces inwardly at the expression on the other woman's face. Because there stands the deposed queen; the vanquished villain of Henry's stories. Conquered, Emma now understands, not by the might of good that wields a sword in battle, but by love and the tide that's crept in little by little until they're both pulled under by it.


End file.
